


Ascension

by ShapeshiftingTango



Category: The Following
Genre: Character Study, Gen, mentions Joe Carroll (Korban leader), mentions sacrificial murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-28
Updated: 2014-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-21 04:25:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1537448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShapeshiftingTango/pseuds/ShapeshiftingTango
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a character study of a Korban follower and his feelings in watching another of the cult be chosen to ascend, to go home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ascension

The robes were heavy like the night air. Their darkness wrapped loosely about his shoulders and draped over his head. An alabaster mask tied there under, a rite of his people. He looked slowly about his family, large and loud. They stood from their seats, crying happily for Joe and their sister who was going home tonight. She was so lucky that Joe had chosen her. She wept, rivers tracing down her dusky cheeks. She looked forlorn. She looked scared, terrified of death though it would only raise her. Make her better, higher than the flock who stomped in the crowd aside the stage. She was so lucky and she refused to see it. It could have been any one member of their family. It could have been him, clothed in crimson garments rather that the cloak and mask. She needed no mask for she was going to go see their maker.

His lip curled into a jealous snarl behind the plaster. A thin sheen of sweat enveloping his body beneath his garments. She was squandering her luck and he despised her for it. A beat rumbling in his chest alerted him to the arrival of their leader. Tall as a mountain and strong as the winds, Joe stood uplifted. Upon the stage like a king, no a god. Joe was their god. He was their everything and he loved them all. Each brother and sister a hatchling under his wing and he was teaching them to fly, but only a few would succeed. And tonight it was her, he didn't what Joe saw in her. Perhaps that was why he had not been chosen to let his blood paint the planks that evening, appearing black in the torch light. Ink seeping from careful wounds. Wounds distributed by Joe's own hand. It would be glorious. It will be glorious, because one day he knew he would be the one going home.

Though for now he simply stood among his siblings and cheered his sister's reward, regardless of how deserving she was. He sniffed. Thoughts flying in the face of the ceremony. He should have been paying strict attention to his Lord's teachings, not mentally tearing down his worthy brethren. In sync, the family raised their arms. Their voices started low and soft, building as their wings spread until they were but a flock screaming into the night. Breathe gone, forsaken into the night, they fell silent and on that silence another scream did commence. His sister struggled to cling to her life, but it was splashed upon Joe's hands and face. He was dripping in her ink and her voice wavered into nothing as she ascended.

Home.

“All Hail Joe Carroll.” He cried, ripping off his mask in celebration. Each passing was a blessing, tonight they would give their bodies to her memory and their souls to bettering themselves under his guidance.

“All Hail Joe Carroll.” Joe bowed, returning the ceremonial blade to its sheath still drenched in his sister and crusted with the many that rose before she.

“All Hail Joe Carroll.” He slipped from the benches semi-circling the stage with his brothers and sisters in tow. They would go to the grounds where they would mount her body in the trees with the rest and begin the transmogrification. Drums. The forest was a heartbeat with stars twinkling far beyond the bonfires' ring like the eyes of their siblings from the windows of Home. They looked down on them all with a sense of cosmic calm. They were above the rush and pull of life in their veins, gods in an endless time. He looked to them in that moment, stumbling in his distraction over twigs and underbrush. A strong sense of serenity came over him. Though he was not chosen to ascend that evening, he had learned many lessons.

 

_Love. Unity. Peace. We are one. Korban is family. Korban is love. Korban, forever._

 

All hail Joe Carroll. Our savior.

 

 


End file.
